Pale Horse Riding

by Chris Petit

  A siren came from the direction of the camp, wavering until it got up to speed. He slipped them inside.

  In the cellar some contraband had been reinstated. Schlegel helped himself. Food. Water. Chocolate. A sack to put it in, and a couple more to act as blankets should they need them. His mind went blank; he stared, seeing a sea of nothing. Then everything went black.

  For a moment he couldn’t say what had happened. The siren droned on. He heard distant gunshots and presumed another escape. He could hear Sybil breathing and experienced an absurd leap of hope, believing it marked the start of her return. He said, ‘It must be a power cut.’

  He told her to wait. He would be back soon. He promised she was as safe there as anywhere. No one would be poking around down there in the dark. He couldn’t think of anything to say that didn’t sound cheap or corny.

  He felt his way out. After the black cellar the night appeared preternaturally bright. The siren came in waves. All lights were out, including the big camp arc lamps. The whole garrison was down. He heard horses riding out. Gunshots, sirens, horses – the posse, he hoped, chasing an escape; distraction to add to the confusion.

  He crossed the commandant’s garden, left by the gate and walked to the front door. He saw candles on upstairs. The bell didn’t work. He banged on the door.

  Eventually Frau Hoess answered herself, carrying a candle, which she held up to light his face. She wore a housecoat and raised her free arm to her brow, saying she had been upstairs resting. She seemed neither surprised nor interested to see him, yet he was aware of a sexual current. Her skin was flushed, her eyes bright and unfocused. He said he needed to talk of a matter of urgency.

  ‘You’d better come in, though why I should welcome you after the way you behaved . . .’

  She took him into the sitting room where she lay on the sofa and he sat opposite, elbows on his knees, wondering what to say. He threw his hands in the air and gave up.

  Whatever else, Frau Hoess was a woman of intuition.

  ‘Tell me about her,’ she said softly.

  Schlegel wondered about her narcotic state.

  He told a pack of lies, thinking all that counted was the conviction with which it was told.

  He gambled everything on the woman being a frustrated romantic. He knew he must pour his heart out to her – as she would have it – telling of his impossible love. He was delirious enough as it was.

  The wail of the siren gave urgency to the telling. The intimacy of candlelight lent his garbled account a conviction it would not otherwise have had.

  She listened entranced as the words cartwheeled out of him and he gave her the tear-jerking star-crossed tripe she obviously craved – his seamstress lover’s lowly background and troubled past, driven into prostitution by a drunken wastrel, who used her earnings to feed his gambling habit, beatings . . .

  Frau Hoess sat up, putting her hand to her mouth as he went on – his mother’s disapproval . . . more tragedy when a corrupt policeman tried to force his attentions and when she refused had her arrested for soliciting, just as they were planning to elope.

  ‘My God, what a story! This is why you are here!’

  ‘To see if I can get her out.’

  He was starting to believe himself. What a pair they made: he feverishly hysterical; she lost in doped reverie. She patted the seat next to her. They went through the handholding routine. Schlegel thought: Patently undesirable yet fatally attractive.

  ‘How enchanting,’ she said. ‘I will cast you as Orfeo and her as Euridice, thrown into the underworld and you come down to rescue her. So marvellous!’

  She told him of her recent opera visit to Kattowice.

  ‘A rapturous production. And now that very story unfolds in front of my eyes. My husband is the least romantic of men. You must not look back as Orfeo did or you will lose her.’

  She looked at him in wondrous excitement.

  ‘Of course! The River Sola is the Styx. I see now. It makes perfect sense. What will you do?’

  ‘I can only throw myself at your mercy. All other avenues are closed. I fear her situation has become imperilled.’

  He saw the rapture as he held her eye and said, ‘I need desperately to pay the ferryman.’

  Frau Hoess clapped her hands, thrilled.

  ‘A secret getaway! What do you need?’

  ‘Funds, not to put too fine a point on it.’

  He watched consideration turn to calculation.

  ‘No, impossible!’

  ‘Perhaps I can perform some labour in return.’

  Calculation turned to something harder.

  ‘Perhaps. No, still impossible.’

  After further cajoling she declared her hand.

  ‘Yes, I will give you a task. I appoint you my secret emissary. Take jade to Fegelein. It will extend my influence. It will remind Bormann of the debt he owes my husband.’

  ‘Debt?’

  ‘My husband once prevented him from going to prison for a very long time, so the obligation is considerable.’

  Schlegel almost lost his nerve as he leaned in and said, ‘They will call you the queen of jade.’

  The woman chirruped with delight.

  ‘Wait here.’

  She went away and came back in the hooded cloak she had worn at the party and waving a torch, which spoiled the effect.

  ‘Come.’

  He followed her through the darkened garrison, down streets full of strange commotion, with more people out than he would have expected, the atmosphere heightened by the lack of light. He was surprised by the absence of an emergency generator. He could smell burning. No smoke from the chimney; the refuse incinerators, he supposed. He feared that the woman would come to her senses before the business could be completed. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep up his pretence, like an actor about to dry on stage.

  Their destination was the tailoring shop, in an alley behind Groenke’s factory. Frau Hoess let them in, stooping to use a key she wore around her neck. In a small room immediately by the front door stood a safe. She tumbled the dial until the numbers clicked and the door swung open to reveal tray upon tray of jewels, with several devoted to jade. Frau Hoess pulled them out and spilled them on the table. She pointed out the best stones to show Fegelein, and the lesser ones, which he could sell. She veered between girlish excitement and beady control. Schlegel suspected it would excite her more to betray them. She would of course accuse him of stealing the jewels.

  ‘The gemstone of nobility,’ she murmured. ‘It relieves anxiety and takes away fear. You look calmer already. Jade is the perfect stone for those disappointed in love. I can see you have been and I know you can tell I have.’

  She pressed a stone into his hand and said there was a price.

  Schlegel pointed out it was getting late.

  ‘My commission. Pay now. It won’t take long.’

  Seeing what she had in mind, he said he feared it might break the spell of his love for Euridice.

  ‘Don’t be silly. That’s just a story.’

  She lifted her skirt and pulled down her underwear – silk, Schlegel noticed – and leaning across the table exposed her buttocks, saying, ‘Take me like a beast.’

  Schlegel flicked through the limited lexicon of erotic imagery in his head, in desperate search of enough to perform the task in hand, trying to think of it as no more than the conclusion of a financial transaction.

  The commandant arrived to find the garrison plunged into darkness, let himself in by the backdoor and paused, listening to the house; quite often it spoke to him at night. He avoided the children upstairs and went straight to his study. He sensed his wife was not at home and entertaining her stud. He drank deep from a bottle of brandy and gargled, using it for mouthwash. The alcohol went straight to his head. He took a torch and went to the cellar, certain his wife and her vile lover had been there. The space was empty but he detected a recent human presence. They would be in the summerhouse. The commandant recited aloud th
at in the realm of matrimony he was the decider and the time had come to settle the hash of his wife and her friend. He pictured her hysterical, the lover craven and shaking, and he within his rights to shoot the pair of them. He savoured the prospect of intense melodrama. He made shooting noises, pointing his finger, paused, looking around, saw a hammer and nails and even some planking that could have served for the crosspieces he had needed earlier. All there. He was distracted by an open sack of flour, pure as driven snow. He bathed his face in it and picked up the hammer and a nail, telling himself he would not cry out.

  Tomorrow would be taken up with the prisoner escape. He had heard the sirens and gunshots. Lockdown. No work. Prisoners confined to barracks or out for a daylong roll call in the blistering heat.

  To hammer a nail one had to hold it. To hammer a nail into his own hand presented a problem. He found a rag to cushion the top and pushed down until it had enough purchase to stand in his palm. He then banged down hard with the hammer. The pain was blinding, intense yet ecstatic, and in the moment of not crying out he reconfirmed his vows to the leadership, thinking how could he ever have doubted.

  Using the rag, he grasped the top of the nail and yanked it out, which hurt far more than the shock of driving it in. Through force of will he stopped the cry bursting from his lungs.

  He stared at the puckered hole that winked at him, weeping water and blood. He dribbled brandy and felt its clean sting travel through the wound and thought of the lanced body of Christ.

  He heard soft, frightened breathing, little gasps, and realised someone was down there in the dark with him.

  Sybil stared at the ghastly illuminated mask hovering over her. She knew it must be the commandant because she had heard him talking to himself, doing what she could not tell. He was shining a torch up into his face, which appeared unnaturally white and distorted. He whispered not to be afraid.

  ‘I am alone. No one knows I am here. You are quite safe.’

  He continued to shine the torch upwards.

  ‘I mistook you for my wife.’

  He seemed excited and confused.

  She thought: If not one monster another. Perhaps the apparition before her was a dream, or there by magic, or a projection of her own sick fantasies. For a long time now her mind had been in danger of collapsing.

  Even if the commandant were real, he was not himself, as if he too had taken leave of his senses. His face, deadly white, looked like it had been powdered. He showed no curiosity about why she was there and kept inspecting his hand. He asked if he could sit next to her.

  ‘No funny business,’ he said.

  He continued to hold the torch to his face. For the first time she saw him as human and pathetic. He insisted on showing her his hand. It wasn’t until he shone the light on it that she saw the tight hole in the palm. He splashed brandy over it, saying that would stop it from becoming infected.

  He asked, ‘Why would the Holy Elect choose a nonbeliever to transmit his message?’

  He repeated that she was safe, which had the opposite effect. She had been more physically threatened but never felt in more danger. She realised what he had just done to his hand, and if he was prepared to do that to himself what wouldn’t he do to her? Even with the selection in the hospital ward only an hour before, it had been clear what was at stake. Here she had no idea. In terms of her own fate, she suspected that whatever black hole existed in the commandant’s head, night and furtiveness were essential to his method.

  She decided she must be dreaming after all.

  He wanted to know why she was so reserved and she realised it was the same old business of favour for favour.

  As coldly as she could manage she said, ‘For the obvious reasons of your position and being married.’

  With tears in his eyes, still holding the torch, he tried to kiss her. She reminded him of her pariah status.

  ‘If you were Jewish you would be down as Jewish. I know Morgen forced you to say what you did. I have always treated you with the utmost respect. Morgen is contemptible.’

  After asking permission, he smoked.

  ‘You’re right. We should wait. I can arrange your release and fix you up with a nice room in a beautiful house where perhaps you will let me visit. We can get Erich to furnish it in whatever style you wish.’

  Morgen had offered her freedom, then Schlegel, now the commandant. None on her own terms. A nunnery or boudoir. Schlegel had never made it plain what he had in mind, something clumsy and confused no doubt. Not that she believed any of them.

  Yet another siren went off, different from the rest. He stood and said, ‘You must come. Tomorrow we can move you to your room. It has French doors into an orchard garden.’

  The night was orange, with a crowd of people hurrying towards the main street. As Schlegel got closer he stopped, stunned.

  The building which held the contraband was ablaze, already running out of control. Their evidence was going up in smoke and no one was making any effort to stop it. Never in his wildest dreams had Schlegel anticipated anything so blatant.

  Pohl’s grand finale!

  A rapt crowd applauded every whoosh and crack. The fire cast long, flickering shadows. People leaned out of high windows. Part of the roof went with a crash that raised a cheer. The pillar of smoke spiralled away into black night.

  Someone said the fire engine had been vandalised and they were having trouble getting water.

  Schlegel stood transfixed, knowing he must hurry, still queasy at the memory of Frau Hoess bucking beneath him, ordering him to slap her until he was more excited than he wished by her wild convulsions, saying afterwards how awful she had been, but such operatic digression was permissible, and by possessing him she was releasing him to be free with his true love.

  She asked why he had a Jewish cock. ‘Not because, surely?’

  Schlegel said an English mother; it was not uncommon there.

  ‘Next time hit me harder, beat the bad out of me.’

  It was hard not to laugh but he was ashamed how lost he had become in her.

  She insisted they leave separately.

  The price of transgression was revealed upon Schlegel’s return to the commandant’s house. The cellar was empty. He called out as much as he dared, thrashed around in the dark, feeling the floor, in the unlikely event of Sybil falling asleep or passing out.

  He had lost her and he had run out of time.

  It hit him, with mounting panic, that the fire was why Pohl had let him stay: planned for that night and he the scapegoat. They were probably after him now.

  No Sybil, no way out of the garrison, a pocket full of precious gems, which they would accuse him of helping himself to . . . They wouldn’t leave him a leg to stand on.

  He crashed through the dark, back outside, and paused a moment by the garden gate, stunned by the spectacle of a tree catching fire, its leaves gone in seconds.

  He worked his way round the back of the crowd, failing to get a grip on his disintegrating thoughts. Whooping children contributed to an atmosphere of deranged fiesta. A man ran forward and chucked an empty beer bottle that caught the light as it flew towards the flames. The fire engine was finally being got to work and a hose turned on. The children started to dance around the leaky hydrant, getting soaked. The plume of water, hesitant at first, was lit silver by the glow of the backdrop. What sounded like fireworks started going off. The crowd stilled, then panic spread as it was realised they were gunshots. Someone asked, ‘Are we under attack?’ No, it was ammunition in the building, it was said. Bullets cracked. Some threw themselves on the ground, to general laughter.

  Schlegel pushed deeper into the crowd, checking for Sybil in vain, sensing they would have him under lock and key before the end of the night. He couldn’t tell if he was sweating from the fire, terror or sickness. Screams went up when an army of rats fled the building. Some burned as they ran. A huge crack rang out as more roof collapsed, to an enormous roar. The joke was well and truly on him. He was probably t
he only one in the crowd with pockets of contraband.

  He saw Groenke, in his cart, trying to make his way through the squash. He moved away, working another direction. He thought he glimpsed Sybil but the next moment she was gone. The darkness and flames made everything hard to read.

  Sparks leapt into the sky, tarmac bubbled itself back to pitch, grass smouldered. Another crack, another beam gone, another cheer. Someone blew a bugle for fun, to applause.

  The fire showed no signs of abating. Schlegel abandoned any pretence of method and chased this way and that.

  The mounted troop returned from its sortie, rifles cradled, hooves ringing, pushing through the crowd, the horses dancing sideways, disturbed by the flames, ears pricked, eyes wide. In an empty circle a group of children played a skipping game. Schlegel saw Pohl in consultation with the commandant, looking weirdly pale. He hadn’t realised Pohl was still there.

  Everything took on the appearance of choreographed moves: one wrong step and that would be it.

  A second fire engine arrived, more hose laid. Schlegel saw Broad, loitering in the recess of the hospital block entrance. He was drinking and drunk. A beer stand set up nearby was doing a brisk trade. Broad saluted him with his bottle, and confirmed the worst.

  ‘I wouldn’t hang around. They already have you down for this.’

  ‘And you think I did it?’

  ‘Not for me to say.’

  ‘What would you do?’

  Broad, amused by Schlegel’s predicament, gave a magnanimous shrug and nodded towards the river. ‘Hide out in the zone. Give it a couple of days. Patrols and the posse will be out looking for you and whoever else escaped tonight. By the third day they will lose interest and you can make your move.’

  ‘That easy?’

  ‘They can’t fine-comb twenty-five square kilometres.’

  ‘There’s still getting out.’

  ‘For a contribution to a charity fund of your choice . . . ’ Broad whistled, feigning innocence.

  Schlegel showed two cheaper pieces of jade.

  ‘Not bad.’

  Schlegel produced what turned out to be Tanner’s brooch. He started to say it wasn’t available but Broad relieved him of it and said that was the one he wanted.